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This dissertation explores the political determinants and consequences of social policies in advanced economies. In its four papers, it aims to contribute to our understanding of how social policies influence the political and electoral behaviour of voters as well as the ways in which electoral outcomes determine social policies. Paper 1 investigates the statistical sources of model uncertainty in the literature of welfare state determinants. It approaches this issue by quantifying the sensitivity of empirical estimates towards different model specification choices, including the control variable set, the fixed effect structure, the standard error type, the country sample, the period sample and the operationalisation of the dependent variable. By developing an Augmented Extreme Bounds Analysis (A-EBA) method combined with a grid-search deep learning approach, the paper reveals that the selection of the country and period sample and the operationalisation of welfare state generosity has a substantially larger impact on the coefficients and standard errors in generosity estimations than the control set. Paper 2 quantifies the electoral returns to campaign promises on social benefit expansions. By applying a discontinuity-based research design on survey data in Germany, the results show that promises on pension benefit expansions swing voters to the pledge-making party. This alignment gain, however, is only transitory as the effect diminishes shortly after pledge fulfilment suggesting that even unbroken promises on very generous welfare state policy expansions do not yield long-term political support. Paper 3 measures the mobilising effect of pension benefit expansions in the US. The paper matches voting records with a large administrative dataset on pension payments to retired public employees in Illinois. The results of a discontinuity-based research design show that pension benefits increase electoral participation in the short run among Democrat voters, particularly among those with lower levels of income. In contrast, Republican and/or unaffiliated voters remain unresponsive. Thus, the results suggest that policy feedbacks depend strongly on voters' ideological and material predisposition. Paper 4 examines whether the provision of social benefits and assistance programmes can mitigate the political costs of unpopular policies, such as climate change policies. By applying an instrumental variable approach to a dataset covering a large set of advanced economies over time, the estimates show that the welfare state can be a viable tool to prevent electoral punishment the incumbent receives for passing unpopular policies. These findings highlight that the welfare state can generate the political and electoral support that is necessary for urgently needed measures in times of global warming.